Series

Jesus left that place and went to the vicinity of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know it; yet he could not keep his presence secret. [25] In fact, as soon as she heard about him, a Canaanite woman whose little daughter was possessed by an evil spirit came and fell at his feet. [26] The woman was a Greek, born in Syrian Phoenicia. She begged Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter. [23] Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

[27] "First let the children eat all they want," he told her, "for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

[28] "Yes, Lord," she replied, "but even the dogs under the table eat the children's crumbs."

[28] Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted."

We often complain about the low state of morals in our country, but most of us come from a slice of society that still has a remnant of Christian morality in it. We see that, for example, in the high value we put on being polite. We teach our kids to say “please”, and “thank you”, I still see some men holding doors for women, we say “excuse me” when we burp or bump into someone, and we don’t think it is very proper to insult people, at least not to their face.

So it seems very strange that Jesus, the Righteous One, the Holy One of God, would use a racial slur in a face to face encounter with a woman desperate for Him to heal her daughter! But that’s what He did, and it seems like He went out of His way to do it.

Mark 7:24 tells us Jesus left the region of the Sea of Galilee, and went to the region of Tyre and Sidon, which was about 40 miles or more from Capernaum, His home base. That’s a long walk. Why would He go there? Jesus had just been speaking with the teachers of the law about what made a person clean and unclean. They believed that any social contact with a Gentile made a person unclean. The region of Tyre and Sidon was predominantly Gentile; so Jesus was illustrating by His trip to Tyre the truth that it is what comes out of a person’s heart that makes him unclean, rather than any external factors. He’s not going to be contaminated by contact with the Canaanites. Just like we would not be contaminated spiritually by contact with people who were obvious “sinners”.

But there was more to this trip than an illustration of the truth, and the key to understanding that is in the racial prejudice of the Jews toward Gentiles. We see that prejudice expressed in several different ways in this incident.

Jesus arrives in town, He settles in (most likely at the home of a Jew living in the area), and the word gets out that He is there. (Mind you, these are Gentiles who are passing the word that a Jewish rabbi was in town. But Jesus’ reputation as a healer seems to have gone before Him.) A Canaanite woman comes and throws herself at His feet and begs Him to heal her little girl, who is demonized.

The disciples show their obvious disdain for her when they say to Jesus, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us" (Matt 15:23). She’s bugging us; get rid of her. As a Gentile, she means nothing to them; in fact, they are offended by her very presence in the house where they are staying.

In other cases where people brought to Jesus their friends or relatives who needed help, He responded with immediate compassion, but here He says to the woman, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel" (Matt 15:24). The gist of that comment is, “God only loves Jews. You don’t matter to God and you don’t matter to me.” Wow, that’s rude! But it was very much in keeping with the Jewish mentality that God loved them best.

Then He insults her. Mark 7:27, "First let the children eat all they want, for it is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs." This was the Jewish party line that the Jews were the children of God, and the Gentiles were not. Jews called all Gentiles “dogs”, and Jesus uses that term for her, right to her face. It would be like calling an African American woman “Nigger” to her face. I’m sure you’ve heard before that dogs of that day were not usually the pampered pets most of us are familiar with. When we were in Cameroon visiting the Shidelers, Barbie and I saw dogs that were much closer to the ones common in Jesus’ day—covered with flies and bloody scars, ears half chewed off, they had to scavenge their food wherever they could find it. They were typically vicious and generally not the sort of animals you wanted to be around. That’s how Jews thought of Gentiles in that day. How would you like to be called a “dog” like that?

Jesus was really rude to this woman, but the disciples didn’t notice, because—and this is key—He was only expressing the prejudice they felt.

With all that prejudice between Jews and Gentiles, you have to wonder why Jesus would make a special trip, out of Jewish territory into a Gentile area, only to treat this woman as rudely as He seems to do. And then He heals her daughter! And then He leaves. That’s all He did there. Apparently, this woman and her daughter were the reason He made that special 80-100 mile round trip. What’s that all about? Why was Jesus so rude to her, and why did He make the trip at all?

This is another example of how Jesus was preparing His men for the Great Commission, in which He said, Matt 28:19, “Go, make disciples of all ethnic groups.” But first He had to break down the racial prejudice of the Jews, who, because they were the “chosen people of God”, thought of themselves as better than everyone else. He went about that process of breaking down their prejudice in a very interesting (and potentially confusing) way, by being rude to this woman. I think He was playing the disciples. He was doing and saying exactly the things they would expect Him to, the things that expressed their own prejudice, only to spring the trap at the end when He healed the little girl. He plays to their bigotry, and then demolishes it with His compassion and healing power. He wants them to see how utterly wrong that attitude of prejudice really is. You can’t be prejudiced against someone and reach out to them in compassion; so by healing the girl, Jesus showed that He really loved Canaanites as much as He loved the Jews He had healed.

He came to bring the gospel to the lost sheep of Israel—first. But His long range plan included people of every ethnic group on earth. He had already illustrated that by intentionally passing through Samaria so He could minister to the woman He met at the well there. He had made a special trip to the region of the Gerasenes, where He healed the man with the Legion of demons. And now here, He makes another special trip out of His way to minister to this woman and her daughter. He is trying to show the disciples that God loves Gentiles, too, and His salvation is for all people.

Jesus is the Savior of all people, not just the Jews. We’ve been hearing in the Pathlight seminar the exciting story of how God has been working out His purposes to save people from every ethnic group over the past 2,000 years. The gospel is not just for us, and people like us. It is for the whole world—every people group, regardless of how lowly and despised they may be.

An example of that is the Dalits of India. There are roughly 24 million Christians in India, and 60% of them are Dalits, formerly called the Untouchables.[1] These people, who are born into poverty and discrimination, perform the most menial and humiliating service jobs in the country. No self-respecting Hindu or Muslim will have anything to do with them, but Christians have brought them the gospel of love in Jesus Christ, and many have responded eagerly to the acceptance by God and His people.

When Jesus went out of His way to visit Tyre, expressly to meet this woman and heal her daughter, He was setting the example for us. Remember how He said, “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you”(John 20:21)? The Father sent Him to minister to people who were the victims of oppression and prejudice like this woman, and now Jesus is sending us to the same kind of people.

Who are they? Who are people in our day who suffer oppression, social ostracism, prejudice, etc.? Here’s a politically hot potato—how about illegal immigrants? Undocumen-ted workers. Wouldn’t you say that those people in our country experience much the same kind of treatment from most Americans as the Gentiles got from the Jews in Jesus’ day? What does His example of going out of His way to minister healing to this woman’s daughter tell us about how He would want us to treat illegals here today? A few folks from our church have heard the call of Jesus to take the good news of the gospel to Spanish speaking people in Loveland, whether they be legal or illegal, by teaching them English in a course based on the Bible. That’s the sort of thing Jesus was espousing by His trip to Tyre.

Ron and Barb Ornelas in our church have a burden to minister to the Native Americans, especially the Navajo nation. There’s another group of people who have been despised, oppressed, the victims of serious racial prejudice from the rest of America. Talk with Ron and Barb about their vision, and see if that’s something God might be calling you to, as well.

I think people with AIDS fall in this same category; and maybe folks with severe mental and physical retardation. These are the types of people Jesus made a special point of reaching out to.

Jesus says in Matt 15:28, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." There are several other places in the gospels where Jesus comments on the amount of faith people had.

One was in the Sermon on the Mount, where He was teaching them about the faithfulness of God, and encouraging them to trust Him for their needs. He says, Don’t worry about what you will eat or drink, or whether you’ll have clothes to wear. Look at the birds—God feeds them. Look at the lilies—they are clothed more beautifully than even King Solomon was in all his splendor. Matthew 6:30, “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” So here, it’s an assessment on His part that they were in fact, worried about these daily necessities, and that their worry was an indication that they had too little faith in the providence of God.

Another instance was with the disciples in the storm on the Sea of Galilee. They were convinced they were going to drown, because the storm was so strong. Jesus spoke to them in their panic, Matthew 8:26, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Mark says that He was even stronger, and asked them, “Do you still have no faith?" Mark 4:40. They certainly did not have enough faith to overcome their fear of drowning!

A third instance was also on the lake, when Jesus walked out to them on the water while they were rowing hard against the wind. At Jesus’ invitation, Peter boldly got out of the boat and started walking to Jesus on the water. But then he noticed the wind, and the large waves, and he began to sink. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" (Matt 14:31). You were doing it! You had it, and then you doubted. Your faith was too little to keep you up.

Jesus only describes two people as having great faith, and both of them were Gentiles. One is this woman whose daughter was demonized; the other was a Roman centurion. The centurion had come to Jesus asking for Him to heal his servant, who was paralyzed and in terrible pain. Jesus said, OK, I’ll come. But the soldier replied, Matthew 8:8-10, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. [9] For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." [What he’s saying is, “I understand authority. I’m under authority, and I have authority over others. I believe you have that kind of authority over sickness, so you don’t even need to come to my house; just give the command, and it will be done.] [10] When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.”

As it turned out, He never did find anyone in Israel with such great faith. The only other person He said had “great faith” was this Canaanite woman from Tyre.

How was her faith demonstrated? We see it in her persistence. If you combine the two gospel accounts of this encounter with Jesus, Jesus seems to really be stiff-arming her. He delays seeing her; He says He only came for the Jews; He makes some derogatory comment about her as a “dog”. Wow! How would I handle that kind of treatment? But this woman just keeps coming. She reminds me of a running back carrying the ball who hits a solid wall at the line of scrimmage, so he bounces back and tries another hole which immediately fills up, so he runs around the end and has to break several more tackles before getting into the end zone.

She is a great illustration of the point Jesus made in Luke 11. He told the story about the man who had a guest arrive at his house late in the evening, and he didn’t have any food in the house for him. This was a major social faux-pas in those days, when hospitality to travelers was such a high value. So the homeowner went next door to see if his neighbor had some food he could give him. But the neighbor was in bed, and didn’t want to get up. Jesus concludes, Luke 11:8, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man's boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.” This word translated boldness in the NIV has the flavor of persistence, shamelessness, impudence. That’s exactly what the Gentile woman in Mark 7 was demonstrating. She was absolutely confident Jesus could heal her daughter, and she wasn’t going to take No for an answer.

We also see her faith demonstrated in her humility. Jesus basically calls her a dog, a racial slur akin to the N-word today. But rather than take offense at that, she merely turns it around and uses it to her advantage. “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs” (Mark 7:28). As it turns out, she has probably picked up on a very small clue from Jesus that He was open to her request. There were several Greek words for dog, and the word He uses (and the one she responds with) would more naturally refer to household pets than to the dogs of the street.[2] These dogs sat under their masters’ tables, waiting for the occasional scrap. She does not take offense, but takes advantage of the expression as a way to press her case with her very humble suggestion that He might consider her like a household pet, to whom He might throw a crumb.

Jesus says she has “great faith”. Where are you on this scale? Would you say you have great faith in God, or little faith, or even no faith? If you were to rate your faith on a scale of 0 (no faith) to 10 (great faith), where would you be? The encouraging thing to me in these incidents is that Jesus does not reject those with little or no faith. He scolds them, perhaps, but He does not reject them, or fail to help them. That’s key. We saw before in Mark that Jesus healed the son of the father who said, “I believe; help my unbelief”. He rescued the disciples from the storm, and Peter from sinking. In another place, He said that we only need faith the size of a mustard seed. So even if I would give myself a 2 or 3 on the faith scale, Jesus would encourage me to trust Him more.

And my response is, that’s right, Lord. That’s exactly what I want to do. I want to trust you more. Thank you for the example of this Gentile woman, who is desperate to see her daughter healed, and believes you can do it.

I think all of us would like to have more faith. How can we get that? How can we increase our faith? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Study the character of God in Scripture Ps 62:11,12
Pay particular attention to His power, love, and faithfulness as they are demonstrated over and over again in His encounters with His people. Memorize Psalm 62:11-12, and recite it to yourself often. “One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that you, O God, are strong, [12] and that you, O Lord, are loving.” Remind yourself of this when you pray.

2. Ask Him to increase your faith as the disciples did.
Now that is a risky prayer request, because it is a lot like the prayer for more patience or humility—the way God is most likely to answer those prayers is to give you situations that demand more patience or humility. So if we pray for more faith, God is very likely to put us in situations where we have to trust Him, even when it is uncomfortable.

3.     Get out of the boat
                   John Oertberg has a great book called If You Want to Walk on Water, You Have to Get Out of the Boat. We all may think it would be great to walk on water—to do something that only the power of God could explain—but to do that, we have to get out of the boat. We have to put ourselves in situations where only God can hold us up.
          In the reading for the Pathlight seminar last week, we learned about two men who really exemplified this approach. One was Hudson Taylor. When he became convinced God was calling him to China as a missionary, he began to prepare himself for that ministry. One thing he did to build his faith was to practice trusting God for the very necessities of his life. He gave away everything he had, including most of his money, and asked God to provide what he needed. His motto was, “Move men through God by prayer alone,” and he proved that God would do it.
          The other man was William Carey, another Englishman, who was called to India. His motto was, “Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God.” Notice the order of that: first, expect great things from God; then, on the basis of that, attempt great things for God. Get out of the boat, expecting Him to hold you up. Operating on that basis, William Carey translated the entire Bible into three Indian languages, Bengali, Sanskrit, and Marathi, and founded Serampore Bible College to train national leaders and church planters. He also made a big impact on the cultural practices of widow-burning and infanticide.
          These were men who risked everything on the faithfulness of God. If we do that, we will find that He is trustworthy—and think what that would do for our faith! But we have to get out of the boat.

The Canaanite woman referred to the table under which the dogs sat, hoping for a scrap of food. The “table” is a symbol of the source of good things. It’s where the food is served to those privileged or honored enough to be seated at it. When David found Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, who had been crippled in both feet, he had the handicapped man come be a part of the inner circle of the King, and eat from his table just like one of the king’s sons. (2 Sam 9:11).

But the table that figured most prominently in the life of the Jews was the one in the tabernacle, and then later in the temple. It was a wooden table, covered with gold, and on it was the “bread of the Presence”. This bread was changed once a week, but there was always bread on the table, signifying the constant presence of the Lord, as the One who provides for His people. (Exodus 25:23-24, 30) That table was a symbol of the incredible blessings that flow from the presence of God. James 1:17, “Every good and perfect gift is from above…”

Jesus gave this woman a hard time, perhaps to test her faith, because she was not a Jew. But we are His children, adopted into His family by the Spirit of God. We have been bought and paid for by His blood shed on the cross. As such, we stand in a privileged position with Him, a position in which He has committed Himself to our welfare and blessing. He is predisposed to give good gifts to His children who ask Him.

But maybe you don’t have “great faith” like this Gentile woman. Maybe your faith is small, weak, unable to boldly ask for great things from God. You know you are a child of God, seated as His table like Mephibosheth was at King David’s table, but you just don’t have the faith to ask for the prime rib and lobster. If that’s your situation, here’s the good news: Jesus’ power is so great that even a “crumb” of blessing is enough to drive out a demon. Right? She asks for a crumb, acknowledging that that is all she could ask for as a dog under the table, and Jesus grants her request. She went home and found her daughter well.

So if that’s a crumb, what crumbs would you like to ask for from His table? Remember, you could ask for something that seems really big to you, but it would only be a crumb to Jesus. Release from demonic oppression; physical healing; emotional healing; a friend’s salvation; a job; more faith; revival; the transformation of your character—you name it, it’s easy for Him.

Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” God has already given us the greatest gift possible—His own Son, offered up on the cross as a sacrifice for us. Anything else we might ask for—everything we could ever ask for all together—is just crumbs. Ask!

[1] http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/august/3.21.html accessed 10/8/07.

[2] “Kunaria referred to household dogs rather than the despised scavenger dogs of the streets.” A. Plummer, An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Mark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926), p.189. Cited in R. Kent Hughes, Mark: Jesus, Servant and Savior, vol. 1, (Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1989), p.174.